THE ISSUES OF LIFE 309 



of heredity will not be controlled and guided by natural 

 selection. Man will stagnate" . . . (1901, p. 24). Thus 

 imperialism and militarism find theoretical justification, 

 even from one who is quite clear that " the safety of a 

 gregarious animal and man is essentially such depends 

 upon the intensity with which the social instinct has been 

 developed ". " The stability of a race depends entirely on 

 the extent to which the social feelings have got a real hold 

 on it" (1901, p. 47). 



We need not raise the question of the wisdom of appeal- 

 ing to Nature for ethical guidance, nor dwell on the danger 

 involved in the fact that the Darwinian concept of struggle 

 arose historically from a consideration of human problems; 

 there are more important things to say. First, as we have 

 seen, internecine competition among near kin is only one 

 mode of the struggle for existence. Especially among the 

 finer forms of life do we find that the answer-back which 

 is given to the environing limitations is less and less fre- 

 quently an intensification of competition, is more and more 

 frequently something subtler, some modification of parental 

 sacrifice, some co-operative device, some experiment in so- 

 ciality. Dr. Chalmers Mitchell goes the length of saying 

 (too strongly, we think) that " the struggle for existence 

 as propounded by Charles Darwin, and as it can be fol- 

 lowed in Nature, has no resemblance with human warfare " 

 (1915, p. 108). And again, as entirely independent con- 

 firmation of what we have maintained in Darwinism and 

 Human Life (1909) and elsewhere, we may quote this in- 

 teresting passage : " Looking through the Animal Kingdom 

 as a whole, and remembering that the Vegetable Kingdom is 

 as much subject and responsive to whatsoever may be the 

 law of organic evolution, I find no grounds for interpreting 



